Carolina Theatre Announces Incredible 90th Anniversary Events

The Carolina Theatre will celebrate its 90th year in the heart of Downtown Durham in 2016 with a year-long celebration filled with spectacular live events, interesting special programs and exciting new partnerships.

The last remaining of the original downtown theatres, the Carolina Theatre opened on Feb. 2, 1926 as the Durham Auditorium. Nine decades later, the city-owned historic concert and performing arts venue has become a community treasure and one of its most beloved institutions.

“The Carolina Theatre has been a lot of different things over the years and it’s had these various lives, but through all of them it’s persevered — even when the future of the building, and the City, was in question,” Carolina Theatre President/CEO Bob Nocek said.

“You think about all of the other buildings that were here when we opened that aren’t here anymore. This one is around because it was — and is — important to people.”

Theatre officials have scheduled a slate of events to help pay tribute to the building’s nine decades of presenting arts and entertainment in the city:

For 90 years, the Carolina Theatre has remained a constant in the ever-changing downtown landscape thanks to continued support from a community of arts-loving citizens, many of whom can readily remember various stages of their own lives by recalling the films, concerts and events they’ve seen inside the magnificent building.

“The Carolina Theatre wouldn’t be celebrating its 90th year without the generous support of the people of Durham and its surrounding communities,” Nocek said. “We want to preserve our venue for the past, present and future generations of Durham.”